"Cry of The Banshee" [1970] Movie Review

 

"Cry of The Banshee" is a 1970 Folk Horror movie that stars Vincent Price. It is very much in tune with "Witchfinder General", and I unintentionally ended up watching this after the former mentioned movie. This seemed to be very fitting, as they're quite similar, and deal with the ideas of witchcraft, satanism, and torturing people unjustly. 

The movie claimed to be based off of Edgar Allan Poe's work, but this is very loose. The movie only quotes the lines to Poe's poem "The Bells" before the movie actually starts. 

 This was clearly a way to draw in viewers who were familiar with Price's previous works based off of Poe's writings. This was a similar tactic done when the movie "Witchfinder General" was advertised. 

To me, the movie seems to draw a lot of inspiration from "The Masque of The Red Death", and Price's character was like a slightly watered down version of Prince Prospero. I am unsure if it was unintentional, but it seemed like the movie was sort of making an homage to Price's previous works in the Poe realm. One of the characters is named "Rodrick", which was the name of character Price played in the movie "The Fall of The House of Usher". 

That said, the plot to the movie is that Price and his crew come across a Satanic Witch Sabbath, and try to put an end to it. His family is cursed by the main witch, who we can probably assume is The Banshee.  The idea is a bit similar to that of "House of Usher", where the family name is cursed, and the family members go crazy, or die in strange ways. The Whitman family are supposed to be anti-witchcraft and anti-Satanism, with Price's character accusing people of being witches, and having them tortured. At the same time, when bad things start happening to his family, he denies the existence of witches. 

The shrill cry of the banshee can be heard outside, and the Whitman crew are scared, because as folklore goes, such a cry means death. They try to play it off as a dog attacking other animals, but obviously, there were people who knew that it was more than just a dog. 

Hilary Dwyer also stars in the movie, this time as Maureen, the daughter to Price's character. She is having relations with Rodrick, the man conjured by the main witch to curse the Whitman family. 

 Eventually, he turns into a werewolf, though I suppose he is also supposed to be the Banshee? This isn't directly explained, and according to folklore, a Banshee is supposed to be a woman. I don't know why they made him into a werewolf, but I suppose it fit the actor's natural facial features. 

 The main witch that cursed the Whitman family is seen at various points in the film, still trying to curse them. There are a couple of scenes where she is seen using a voodoo doll, and sticking pins in them to harm her target. It was interesting, as this movie seemed to lean more into the British Paganism and "Old Religion" as they called it, though it seemed to still take a few cues from what was then modern day witchcraft. This movie was released a year after the Satanic Bible, and Anton LaVey wrote about the use of voodoo dolls in his book. Another interesting thing to note, was how the main witch had her coven worshiping around a circle with Black Candles. Black Candles were the only color of candle used, in the final scene where the main witch was killed. LaVey's writings talked about using Black Candles during rituals. 

I don't know if the movie took a lot from the Church of Satan, but considering the time period, I have reason to believe so. One of the main contentions beyond the candles, is the fact that it was a group of witches worshiping Satan. Many writings from the early Church of Satan days would refer to female followers as "witches". And let's not forget, there is the book "The Satanic Witch", though that came out after this movie. 

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Anyway, I found the movie to be interesting, and scratched more of that "witch itch" than "Witchfinder General" did. I liked how the movie focused a bit more on the paranormal, some type of curse, and gave a little bit of reason why Price's character would accuse people of being witches...because there actually were some in this movie. 

 According to some of the lore, Price apparently didn't care for the movie much. The movie also apparently inspired the name of the band "Siouxsie and The Banshees", though I don't know how true that is. What is also a bit crazy, is that Siouxsie was born on the same day as Vincent, though 46 years apart. 

 

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There was one thing I noticed about the movie, that didn't seem to be pointed out anywhere. The soldiers in this movie and "Witchfinder General" have the same costumes! I guess they saved them from the previous movie for this one. 

" Cry of The Banshee"

 

 "Witchfinder General"

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 When I looked through the newspaper archives, I couldn't find any reviews for the movie, though there were advertisements for it, of course. The movie was often paired with "Angel Unchained", a Hippie Biker type movie. 

 

A couple of ads did pair the movie with "Scream and Scream Again", another Price movie.

 

Anyway, I actually really liked this movie, and would watch it again.  It has some silliness and camp, and the ending is Gothic in a way. I think that fans of "The Masque of The Red Death" would enjoy this movie, as it seems to take quite a bit from it. 

 

I gave this 3/5 stars on letterboxd. 

1 Slime 

 

"An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe" [1970] Movie Review

 

"An Evening Of Edgar Allan Poe" is a 1970 film which features Vincent Price, and Vincent Price only. He is seen performing 4 different pieces by the author, in what are very dramatic interpretations of the source material. 

The film is hard to find now-a-days, and I was able to watch it on youtube, though the upload of it was pretty low quality. It's hard to judge the film completely, when the only way to watch it is a video that's of potato quality.

That said, I did find Price's interpretations to be great. Simply put. What I loved the most, was how much emotion Price put into each piece. Watching this film, I really felt like Vincent Price was perfect for theater, and of course, Edgar Allan Poe's writings. I really loved watching this, because there are many films from the late 60's and early 70's with Price, that don't utilize his theater skills, like this film does. Movies such as "Scream and Scream Again", and "The Oblong Box" are way too subtle in comparison to how Vincent performed here. Truly, I believe that Price was a perfect stage actor. You can tell how much he enjoyed performing, as he really seemed to be enjoying himself while interpreting these pieces. Overall, I really enjoyed this, especially since it's almost lost media. I don't know where you could easily find a high quality version of this, unless you bought something second hand online. 

I couldn't find any reviews for this in the newspaper archives, but there were a few articles and ads for the showing. 

 

Most of the articles I found, usually mentioned this film in passing. The exact date that this was released doesn't seem to be known, but it seems to have been around the late spring-summer time period of 1970. That same year, Price also renewed his contract with AIP (American International Pictures). 

 

 

Another thing I found interesting, was that the news couldn't seem to figure out if the film was titled "An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe", or "An Evening Of Edgar Allan Poe". There were advertisements calling it both.

 

Not much more can be said about this one. I enjoyed it for what it was, and just wish there was a higher quality video to watch somewhere. I liked the idea of Vincent Price doing "solo" work. I wish there were more works of his like this. 

That said, I gave it a 4/5 on letterboxd. 

"Scream and Scream Again" [1970] Movie Review

 

"Scream and Scream Again" is a British movie release in 1970, though the genre for this one is hard. It starts off like some sort of Gothic Horror Crime Drama, but ends up taking another direction, then makes a right turn, then a left, and overall, leaves the viewer confused. 

 There are 3 main ideas in this movie, and they are barely tied together by the end of the movie. First, is a so called "vampire killer", where a man was targeting women, killing them, and seen sucking their blood (at least with one woman). Second, is a military initiative that very clearly resembles the Nazis. While it doesn't show any swastikas, the outfits and color schemes are the same. Why this was there, and what they were hoping to achieve, is never really explained. Some sort of "master race", but not in the Hitler way. Even still, why the movie was trying to emulate this, was never explained. 

The third plot point to the movie was a strange experiment of sorts, where a man who was seen running at the beginning of the movie, would be periodically shown with less and less limbs. 

The movie advertised big names such as Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing...though the three are never in a scene altogether. Peter Cushing is seen the least, literally only in one scene, where is killed off. Christopher Lee gets a little more screen time, and Price gets the most, but even he isn't seen that much. I don't consider this to be a Vincent Price movie, just one that he happened to be in. Halfway through the movie, I realized they probably couldn't afford to have all three in the movie, which is likely why they were barely in it at all. 

The movie runs too long, and should have definitely been cut in multiple areas. One of the biggest scenes is this police car chase, where the vampire murderer dude is wanted by the police. It's so time consuming, and acts like it's building up to his arrest, only to take a turn and have him get away. While it was interesting to see how the chase ended, with the unusual death, it was still very anti-climatic. The movie as a whole acts like it's building up to something, yet there is never really a pay off. 

The end of the movie is the most interesting, where of course, Vincent Price is revealed to be a bad guy. There is this Frankenstein element to his character, where he was having people murdered and brought to his lab to be experimented on. He was creating special human creatures that were constructed out of other peoples' elements, like the brain and limbs. Price and Lee's characters are revealed to also be of this created human type, though it's revealed only at the end. Price is killed off by being submerged in the same bath of acid (acid bath?) that the others were put in. 

One of the other characters asks Christopher Lee if it was finally over, and he, so cliched, says "No, it's just beginning.".  Then the movie ends. It was like as if they might have made a sequel, but thankfully, this never happened. 

Overall, the movie was very hard to follow, and rather boring. Lee and Price's acting was great, which is such a shame for how bad the movie is. It's cheesy, hard to follow, and pretty dorky. It's not scary or Gothic at all. The chase scene could have been 5 minutes, tops. The evil regime didn't need to be there at all. There was just too much going on, and by the end of it all, I asked myself, "What just happened?". 

 The movie could have been good if they focused more on the science fiction element. If they looked more at the human experiments going on, and maybe had more scenes of people being used for them, I would have found the movie more interesting. But it's hard to be taken seriously at all. 

Looking at some of the lore online, it appears that even Vincent Price was confused by the script. Very little of the writing makes sense at all. This is one of those movies were bad writing really broke the film.  

 I'm not sure if I would rewatch this movie. It's not horrible, but boring. It's not creepy, or gothic, or scary...it's just sort of there. 

 

I could not find any reviews for the movie when I looked for it on the newspaper archives. 

2/5 slimes 

SATANIS 1970 Review

 SATANIS 1970 

 

 

“Satanis” is a documentary about The Church of Satan that was recorded in 1969, and released in 1970. The film was very obviously recorded before the Tate-LaBianca murders, so there wasn’t any sort of disclaimer about the crime, and the group. I bring this up because from a historical context, after Tate-LaBianca, some people looked at The Church of Satan as potentially responsible for the crime, as certain members of  The Manson Family had small ties with the group. 

That said, “Satanis” is a mildly interesting film that takes a look into what was still the very new Satanic Religion. You see shots of people being interviewed around San Francisco, and the common person’s opinion about Anton LaVey. Watching the film, it was clear to me that from the start, many people have had their doubts and criticisms about The Church of Satan, and Anton Lavey. What’s interesting to me, is that the way this movie appears, it’s clear that the confusion on whether Anton Lavey was a devil worshiper or not was likely intended from the start. 

There are various people asked about their opinions on The Church of Satan, and a lot of people are of a negative mindset about it. Part of it comes from the obviously traditional Christian-type mindset about Satan and the devil; that Satan is bad, a tempter, and a liar. Some of the people interviewed seemed to believe that the Church of Satan was about literal Satan and demons. I remember one woman had stated that she thought that what Lavey was doing was wrong, as she felt that he was leading people to ruin. Considering that it was 1969, and The Satanic Bible had only barely came out that same year, it can’t be expected that people would know that-that’s not what Anton’s group was about. In some ways, I think that “Satanis” was actually about dispelling these types of myths. 

There’s footage of two rituals performed at the Black House, and while interesting, I think that these run way too long. For people that probably never heard of the Church of Satan, or read anything about them, these scenes would likely show what their inside life was really like. In some ways, I can see this as showing that they’re not really scary, but for 1970, some of the things in this film likely still scared people. 

In 2026, many of the parts within the ritual scenes appear campy and hokey. While Anton wasn’t necessarily trying to appear as a horror movie, it’s always been clear to me that certain parts of his rituals were for show. Watching this movie 5 decades after its release, there are things that just seem rather normal to me, than freaky. The opening scene with a ritual was pretty cheesy to me. One thing that I couldn’t get over was how monotone and bored everyone sounded when reading from the books in front of them. It made me wonder if the rituals performed on film were just that, performances. 

You see scenes that show Anton’s wife at the time, Diane. It was interesting to see her, as she would later leave him in the 80’s. To me, it seemed like Diane didn’t seem that into the magic part of the Church, as much as she was the social aspect of it. There are parts to the film that did shock me, like when she kissed a man’s ass during one of the ritual scenes. Was this something that she always did? Did she find this demeaning? Why didn’t Anton ever kiss any man’s ass?

Interesting though, was how this film showed very open attitudes towards homosexuality. In the decades since Anton’s death, people have claimed that the Church of Satan sold out, and became woke. Ironically, Anton shows in Satanis, which was 28 years before his death, that he didn’t have anything against homosexuals at all. The Church of Satan accepted this from the start! This is also seen in another ritual scene, where a man asks for a new banker in his neighborhood to hopefully be drawn to him. It’s not explicitly said, but if you know what he’s talking about, this was a gay man, hoping for another man to have a relationship with him. 

I did laugh though, when the person after this part of the ritual, asked for his penis to be “moist like leviathan”. It was quite possibly one of the biggest nerds too, and it just made me shake my head. I will admit though, I didn’t care for how overt the people in the film were with sex. Some things said in the movie seemed really gross, like about how one woman talked about her son. I don’t want to repeat what she said. 

Do I think that this is the type of documentary that a regular person would watch, or understand? No. In 2026, I really don’t believe that people would watch “Satanis” and think that it’s answered their questions about Satanism or The Church of Satan. Not the deep questions, at least. “Satanis” has gone on to become more of a piece of history for The Church of Satan, something to be watched by those that are already very familiar with Lavey and his writings. 
The way the Church developed after this film, “Satanis” became rather outdated by the end of the decade. Anton stopped performing rituals by 1975 I believe, and the idea of The Church of Satan as a social group was frowned upon. This is interesting, because “Satanis” does make it appear like the CoS was just a group of friends, that got together.

There are scenes where some of the members are in the room with Anton, discussing random things. It’s interesting to see how there wasn’t this dynamic of “bowing down to Anton our lord”, as some people might have thought. Instead, it appeared more like Saturday night of cards with friends. It does appear that the CoS was more of a theosophical or philosophy club, which in many ways they are. Interestingly, in news article before “Satanis” came out, it appears that Anton Lavey was a part of the Theosophical Society. I wonder if this is what inspired him to create his own group. 

One thing that surprised me, was how Diane and Anton so readily admitted to performing curses on people. I’m surprised that they would be so open to admitting that on film. Another interesting point is how you see “666” painted on the chest of one woman during a ritual scene. In the years after “Satanis”, Anton wrote that “666” wasn’t a Satanic number, but “999” was. Yet here, in what was recorded in 1969, you clearly see that this was different. I’ve come across this in articles about Anton from the 60’s also; one article even shows a picture of Anton’s car, which had “666” on the license plate. I wonder if certain things like this were changed because of how bad the Satanic Panic got in 80’s. I honestly believe that many things from the original CoS years were changed after the Satanic Panic, for legal reasons.

In some of the interviews with the townspeople, you see them talk about whether they believe Anton actually worships the devil or not. Some believed yes, others no. I found it interesting that some of the Christians in the movie stated that they believed it was all just a sort of self aggrandizement for Anton. One older man even states that he didn’t think that the Church of Satan had anything to do with transcending, as seen in other religions. 

There were tidbits in “Satanis” that I didn’t see mentioned anywhere else. More info about Togare, Anton’s lion he used to own, which was almost disturbing in some ways. I won’t mention everything, but apparently Diane was actually scratched, in the least, by Togare in the past. As stated in other reviews about Lavey, I have never understood the interest in owning an exotic animal in a small, suburban setting. By the time “Satanis” was recorded, Togare had already been donated to the zoo.

There were various members of the church interviewed for the film, though their names were never formally divulged. For a documentary, it would have been nice to see name cards or something. The most you could really gather was if a person was wearing a sigil of baphomet necklace or not, but even still, you’d have to have already known about that, to know that-that was a CoS thing. 

I looked up “Satanis” on the newspaper archives, and there was only stuff on it from 1970. Mostly ads about the movie, some reviews lightly touched on the matter. Interestingly, some ads stated that the Church of Satan was a cult. Another article joked that they were afraid of Anton, after he admitted to performing Black Magic, and were his friend! 

Satanis was released on March 4th, 1970, from what I could find. On the opening night of the film, it was played as a benefit for the church, and anyone that attended received free copies of The Satanic Bible. Interestingly, one ad for “Satanis” had “Night of The Living Dead” also advertised with it. 

The movie doesn’t seem to be mentioned after 1970, as I couldn’t find any reviews or ads on it after. 

I rate this 2/5 stars, not because it’s about the Church of Satan, but because the film making itself is not that great. The director really should have done more to explain who the people interviewed were, what their opinions on the church was, and let Anton and the others explain what the church really stood for. To me, documentaries are made to inform, and I don’t really believe that this film did that. 

My video: https://youtu.be/D1BeXr6i5Kc